76 Mr. Edward Clodd on Magic in Names [March 23, 



e.g., that tin is alive and moves abont, and must Ije called bv another 

 name to obtain it. A like belief in their personality explains the 

 propitiating and flattering names applied to diseases, as when the 

 Borneans call the smallpox "jungle leaves," and when the Slavs call 

 the fever demon " godmother." 



In family life the name-taboo is active ; people related by blood 

 or marriage, notably in tbe case of mothers-in-law, avoiding mention 

 of one another's names. But it is with the ascending rank of persons- 

 that the taboo gathers force. From the Far East to Dahomey there 

 prevails the custom of speaking of emperor, king or chief by some 

 other name than his rightful one ; and the Hke applies to priests. 



World-wide is the prohibition or the reluctance to name the dead, 

 lest thereby their ghosts should appear, the bereaved sometimes 

 changing their own names so as to baffle the ghost should he return. 

 A group of folk tales, exampled by the German " Rumpelstilzchen '' 

 and the Suffolk " Tom-Tit-Tot," have at their core the barbaric belief 

 that if the name of the demon can be found out he becomes power- 

 less, and the like applies to the gods. Ba, the Egyptian sun-god, lost 

 his power when Isis beguiled him into telling him his secret name. 

 The name of Bome's tutelar deity was kept secret as her safeguard, 

 and to this day it remains undiscovered. Chaldean and Jewish books 

 of magic teem with formulae concerning the mystic names of the 

 god, and only four years ago a number of monks were ejected from 

 Mount Athos for holding the heresy that God's name is a part of 

 Himself. 



Among the ancient Jews severe penalties were attached to the 

 utterance of the name Yah we, or Jehovah, and in Moslem belief 

 Allah is only an epithet for the god's name. On the other hand, 

 magic power is wrouglit through the invocation of the sacred name. 

 To this the Gospels bear witness in their reports of the expulsion of 

 demons and the healing of the sick in the name of Jesus, and the 

 Early Fathers of the Church record what wonders were performed in 

 the name of the Trinity. To the survival of this belief, cure-charms, 

 inscribed amulets and the like supply proof. 



What magic power is believed to inhere in Avords themselves 

 detached from persons has example in the creative formula, notably 

 in the Egyptian, whereby the god comes into being by uttering his 

 own name, and in the Hindu, the power of the "mantram" being 

 such that it can enchain the gods or make them tremble. Only by 

 mystic passwords can the soul, accoixling to ancient Egyptian belief, 

 secure admission to dwell with Osiris triumphant, and if by mishap 

 the dead man's name be lost, he becomes extinct. 



The survey of a sul)ject which can draw examples from every 

 grade of culture brings home the fact of the persistence of primitive 

 ideas, and adds its crowd of witnesses to that continuity of the 

 spiritual which has its correlate in the phvsical. 



[E. C] 



